GL95

Marina never thought AM was her dad at any point in her life-but he was married to her aunt since she was young and would’ve only divorced Lucy maybe a year before. Now AM thought she was his until a couple months before she was born and mourned her not being his first awhile so on his end it’s super creepy. (Lucy and AM were both close to Eleni and living in Europe when Eleni went to Greece so hard to believe AM wouldn’t have known Marina.)

The other thing is a Blake/AM kid would have pulled Holly into the Spaulding orbit. It also would’ve created an interesting dynamic with Ed who in many ways would have been like an additional grandfather given his relationship to both Blake/AM. It actually would’ve been pretty great drama for Blake to have been pregnant with AM’s kid from their cabin tryst, as Blake definitely would’ve tried to hide things awhile so Roger wouldn’t have known when he first helped Jenna take over Spaulding. Inadvertently wiping out his future grandkid’s inheritance would have been an interesting twist.

Looking back, it was probably a long-term mistake to have Frank be Marina’s bio dad. They got their short-term “perfect couple” but they could have had more organic consistent tension if Frank is raising AM’s kid and you’d have a second Spaulding in Lizzie’s age range. (I’m also a bit surprised they never had a hunky Eleni brother move to SF.) That being said I would have preferred keeping Marina as Frank’s but have a little dramatic irony and have Blake/AM’s Bauer cabin tryst lead to a kid. Have Ross raise another bio-Spaulding if you want Bloss together. It feels like a missed opportunity to not have a Thorpe/Spaulding kid on the canvas. Reva’s run through the Lewises led to three kids at least and Blake had no kids after cycling through Spauldings.

I just read synopses but wasn’t Ava also a big part of the terrible AM return?

I can’t remember when it happened, but I have vague memories of them putting Cassie/Danny in business together and they became pretty close as a clear chem test and I was hoping for the pairing since the NSA as Michelle recast was so flat. Alas, it ended up going nowhere as a pairing.

Just watched the episode with Billy/Van's respective bachelor party/bridal shower. The guest list for Van's was super random-Holly/Michelle/Bridget/Kat/Eleni/Wanda and it was hosted by Mindy. Julie was being driven to the party from the airport by Hart and made out with him rather than go into the party where she was promptly caught by Bridget. Hamp must be pumping up his business because the bachelor party is huge. AM sits at the bar by Ross and Frank is on the other side of him which is quite the grouping even without Ross knowing about the Blake/AM ONS. I guess AM being down and out gets him invited to more non-Spaulding stuff. I think Buzz is the only guy in town not there (and Roger). Henry is giving the evil eye to Billy all night because he's not over Van being stood up at the altar by Billy/Billy marrying and staying with Nadine so long. The highlight is Blake/Ross were fighting earlier and Blake wanted to apologize that night, and she can't get into the party so she puts on lingerie and decides to come out of the oversized cake into the middle of the party where they're expecting a stripper. The purpose of AM's invite becomes apparent as he gets everyone to lightly applaud Blake rather than keep gawking at her and help her out of the cake so she can go talk to Ross. I'm normally not a huge Bloss fan, but this is actually one of my favorite conversations about their differences they've had. She was upset because she realized Ross still had Holly's engagement ring and that it reminded her of his hesitance to marry her. She apologized for how she ran away from the conversation but he told her he understood and that he could be insensitive sometimes.

Rick Hearst strikes me as someone who never outgrew being a theater kid-being high energy naturally is probably why he’s a gifted soap actor but would likely be exhausting in real life haha

Yep-he sings and plays guitar. He sang to Lucy at least once. You can see it at around the 50 minute mark of this video: https://youtu.be/HepSGsEW-6Q?si=be86vesS1Lu14de3

Watching Gilly/Amelia Marshall sing in an episode, and Monti Sharp sang the other day. I've seen Rick Hearst and Morgan Englund also sing on the show-is it part of being in NYC that everyone is musical on this show? I know there's at least one or two I'm missing with musical talent. It's fun that they give everyone their moment to sing.

I would be okay with an early SORAS of Marina at that point since Frank/Eleni were hanging out on the canvas without much to do anyhow. Though I’m sure there would be all kinds of possibilities like a sudden niece/nephew like Bridget was who really worked out.

It's funny that I can't remember if I cut out of GL before Jeffrey appeared or if I just memory-holed him completely.

There's so many of my favorite actors from over the years on GH right now-Maura West/Rick Hearst/Cynthia Watros among others-I don't really know that I want to actually dive into a new modern soap but it's tempting. Aww, I loved Katie/Henry too. I'd forgotten all about him for some reason but as soon as I saw this I had happy flashbacks.

It's funny-I always loved Carly/Maura West (even when Carly was making terrible decisions I almost always sympathized with her) and I remember it being one of the first times I started diverging with my mom who hated Carly. My mom pretty much only liked "good" characters on shows.

More into 1993: HB is for some unknown reason trying to play matchmaker to bring Nick/Mindy back together. I really don't understand this at all. It's not entirely Nick's fault per se (and I find him insufferable at this point most of the time) but I don't see how her family is so excited for her to get back together with someone who fairly easily believed some truly terrible things about her. Not to mention, even though Alex is off the radar, you'd think her being completely free of the Spauldings would make the Lewis clan in general happy. They just handed over the Journal Lewis Oil investment to Mindy just to get her in Nick's orbit. (This is after HB "lost" his binoculars and sent Nick/Mindy off to find them.") Blake is in her period of practically begging Ross to marry her. One thing looking backwards on Blake/Ross is how they really set up Blake's entire self-worth on Ross's opinion of her. She tells Ross she is sure this marriage will work because he's someone too good to leave her, which is interesting because knowing where it goes she's both right and wrong. I think the writing didn't do Blake any favors by having the final death knell with AM be him leading her on/using her given that their marriage falling apart was 100% based on her lying and not him being quick to leave. The focus being on the very end left Blake with no lesson other than picking the wrong men, which really the lying should have been her lesson which she never learns. (Ross is a bit of a sucker for manipulative women so I guess she chose well on finding someone who she can both consider herself unworthy of yet somehow almost always forgive her lies eventually.). Ed just went to visit Eve in the mental hospital roughly two weeks after drugging Mindy/Nick and injuring Mindy among other things, and she is surprised somehow that she won't get to immediately practice medicine. Ed says she can still do non-patient work which seems exceptionally generous to be employed at all after what she did, but she seems upset by this. Roger started a news story about Eve that just sent Ed into a rage. Nick finally decided to give his approval to Holly for the money and expertise the Journal absolutely does not have. The scheming immediately begins with Holly coming up with the idea to do a feature on Jenna that is glowing to basically trap Jenna into creating an image for herself that will conflict with Roger. Strangely, Holly has to literally spell out the theory behind the puff piece to AM who doesn't get it even though Fletcher/Nick get it right away as AM suddenly doesn't leap to deviousness though he's super into it of course once Holly explains. That being said, I could watch Holly/AM scheme all day. (It's funny but in a lot of ways I feel like he fits in better with the Thorpe family messed up dynamics than the Spaulding ones and pretty much like him playing off any of Roger/Blake/Holly better than any Spaulding once Bev left. As a side note, it's funny to me this show never really gave Hart any male friend after Dylan because I feel like there's a bevy of male characters who can relate to his issues with Roger/his new family as a whole. He and Nick basically had the same plot going on at the same time for awhile and I feel like AM has similar baggage.)

If Dinah perceived Billy to soften Vanessa into writing her a check (or write one herself), she would’ve been sucking up IMO. Her long game was definitely to stick it to Van but she would’ve worked any angle to pay off that debt.